Vamanos was a rodeo horse for eleven 11 years of his life. He was a rodeo clown and saved many lives from danger. When Vamanos was retired, he was very exhausted. When anyone approached him, Vamanos would shy away or be surly to the farmer’s daughter, Sophia. She would try to approach Vamanos in the barn or in the paddock. Often, Sophia tried to see Vamanos during mealtime, but Vamanos would run away.
Vamanos enjoyed
being by himself, and he would not socialize with any of the other farm animals.
Before long, he was always alone in the field. Sophia tried to love and care for
him, but Vamanos was afraid she would want him to go to the rodeo like it was
before. Sophia was patient and would try every day to gain Vamanos’ trust.
One evening,
Sophia was walking from the barn to the farmhouse with a large bundle of
clothes she had removed from the line when, out of nowhere, Vamanos reared up and
knocked Sophia over, dropping her bundle of laundry onto the ground. Vamanos
stomped around Sophia and then ran away. Sophia was unharmed but her feelings were,
and she cried. The farmer ran to his daughter and made sure she was all
right. Sophia held onto her daddy until they were inside the farmhouse.
The farmer put
Vamanos into the barn for the night and locked him behind a gate. He was terribly
upset at Vamanos, but the farmer wanted to make sure the horse was all right.
The next morning, the farmer’s spouse saw a pair of britches on the ground
beside the barn and stooped down to pick them up. She found a trampled
rattlesnake that was beneath the britches, and she wondered about the accident
with Sophia the evening before.
When the farmer
and his wife talked, they realized Vamanos was protecting Sophia from danger,
and they were happy that Vamanos was around to help their daughter. A doctor
arrived, and the farmer explained what they had found in the yard. The doctor
agreed and examined Vamanos just in case it hurt him. The doctor was
pleased to find Vamanos in perfect health and high spirits. He bid farewell to
the farmer and his wife and wished the best to Sophia.
The farmer walked
Vamanos to the paddock and led him to the feed buckets. The farmer had mixed an
extra scoop of sugar beets and dry molasses into Vamanos’ barley and oats.
Vamanos finished his special treat and ran around the paddock, looking for
Sophia. It surprised him to see that Sophia was not around the paddock.
Trotting, he made his way to the barn, but Sophia was not there either. He
trotted over to the stables, and he still could not find Sophia.
Finally, Vamanos
walked around the side of the farmhouse and looked inside the windows until he
saw Sophia playing in her room. Vamanos whinnied as loud as he could to get her
attention. Startled, Sophia looked up quickly from the noise. When Sophia saw it was Vamanos, she looked at him with a smile and ran to her window.
Sophia opened her window and Vamanos poked his nose into her room. Sophia
hugged Vamanos and thanked him for protecting her.
The next few days,
Vamanos let Sophia move closer than she ever had before. He let her brush his
mane and scratch underneath his jaw. Sophia was so happy to care for Vamanos
and he was happy, too. Vamanos would follow Sophia as she worked on her chores
and helped her father with the other animals. In the afternoons, Sophia would
fall asleep on the porch and Vamanos would wait in the shade until she was
awake. Sophia would always wake up and get Vamanos a treat.
Early one spring,
the rodeo was coming into town and Vamanos could feel it in the air. He got surly again, and only Sophia could get him to calm down. One of the
other horses stepped too close to Sophia and Vamanos snipped at the other
horse. Sophia was scared, so she asked her father to look at Vamanos again. The farmer
placed Vamanos into his stable and made sure that Sophia brushed the horse
until he calmed down. Sophia braided the horse’s mane and tail and made sure he
was comfortable. Sophia slipped him a special treat of peppermint sticks to see
if that would help his behavior, and it did.
All week Vamanos
was temperamental, but Sophia took loving care of him. It was the last night of
the rodeo, and Sophia made sure Vamanos was comfortable before she and her
family left to see the barrel racing. The evening was exciting, but Sophia could
not stop thinking of Vamanos. She told her father how she felt, and he admitted he was feeling tired too and they should go home early. The farmer and his
wife drove Sophia home so they could look in on Vamanos.
When the family
arrived home, it surprised them to see the ranch supervisor waiting at the
farmer’s home. Sophia knew something must have happened to Vamanos. The supervisor
and the farmer talked with each other when she ran to the barn and
looked for Vamanos in the stables. A gate to the horse stable was open and
Vamanos was gone. The farmer and the supervisor called everyone in the
community to join the search for Vamanos.
In the morning,
the farmer and the supervisor returned from a long night of searching for
Vamanos. When Sophia saw her father return, it devastated her to see that her
horse was not with him. Each day Sophia would go outside and leave food and
fresh hay out for Vamanos to come home to in the barn. This lasted three days
before someone knocked on the door. When the farmer answered the door, there
stood Vamanos and a very tall man in a ten-gallon hat and a pair of brown
chaps.
The tall man
explained that as the rodeo was leaving town, the trailers loaded, the
metal arenas were torn down and packed, and the vendors closed up shop; nobody
realized there was an extra horse in the trailer. The director of the rodeo had
called every town for a missing horse until he found Sophia’s notices all
over the newspapers. The tall man was glad to have found the correct farm; he
was getting nervous. He would have to keep the horse.
Sophia was sitting
by the creek and leaning against a giant pepper tree. She watched the water in
the creek bed float by slowly and her reflection would show how sad she felt
about her missing horse, Vamanos. She was watching the water when leaves fell
into the water and would ripple her sight until the water cleared up. This time,
when the leaves fell and the water cleared, she saw a reflection of herself and
Vamanos. She jumped onto her feet and hugged Vamanos around the neck. She cried, but this time because she was so happy to see her horse.
She loved him so
much and really missed him while he was gone. When Sophia heard the story about
the tall man, she knew Vamanos must have jumped the gate and followed the
family to the rodeo. With all the packing and moving of the rodeo, Vamanos got
lost in the commotion. The farmer was glad to see his daughter happy again and
made sure the gates were raised. From then on, Vamanos would go to the rodeo with
the farmer, the farmer’s spouse, and the little girl, Sophia.
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